PHILOSOPHY SUMMER SCHOOL IN CHINA
2011 SESSION: PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY
SOUTHWEST UNIVERSITY, CHONGQING
25 July-14 August 2011
Dr. Brian Garvey (Lancaster University) director:
EVOLUTION AND HUMAN NATURE
Professor Paul E. Griffiths (University of Sydney)
PHILOSOPHY, GENETICS AND EVOLUTION
Professor Armand M. Leroi (Imperial College London)
ARISTOTLE’S BIOLOGY
Dr. Fern Elsdon-Baker (British Council)
COMMUNICATING BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES IN GLOBALLY DIVERSE
CULTURES
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
EVOLUTION AND HUMAN NATURE
Dr Brian Garvey (Lancaster University)
Lecture 1. Introducing sociobiology
I will start by introducing Edward O. Wilson, explaining what sociobiology in general
is (i.e. sociobiology of animals). I will explain kin selection and reciprocal altruism,
both of which played significant roles in Wilson’s theories. I will discuss Wilson’s
suggestions on how this might apply to humans, and the attempts of others to put
this into practise.
Lecture 2. The sociobiology controversy
This lecture will be about early reactions to Wilson’s work:
(1) Political criticisms: the alleged links to ‘racial science’ and eugenics; the alleged
fatalism about human nature, and consequently about social hierarchies, war, sexist
behaviour in men, etc.
(2) Scientific criticisms: since this will be a major theme of the whole course, I will
here only briefly discuss the early scientific criticisms: the alleged genetic
determinism and panglossianism; the highly speculative nature of the project.
Lecture 3. Introducing Evolutionary Psychology
This lecture will discuss Evolutionary Psychology as a successor to sociobiology;
how (as Evolutionary Psychologists characterise it) their view attempts to shift the
focus from patterns of behaviour being products of evolution to cognitive modules
being products of evolution. I will explain the ideas they have taken from earlier
cognitive science, in particular the massive modularity thesis, and their evolutionary
arguments for it.
Lecture 4. Criticisms of the massive modularity thesis
Here I will assess the evolutionary, and other, arguments for massive modularity. In
particular, I will present the arguments of Fodor and others to show that there are
severe limitations on what modularity can explain.
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Lecture 5. Criticisms of Evolutionary Psychology’s methodology
Here I will discuss criticisms of Evolutionary Psychology’s methodological
assumptions, in particular the possible problem of lack of evidence (and Evolutionary
Psychologists’ response to this), and their alleged commitment to a panglossian
paradigm. I will offer some case-studies, including Cosmides’ alleged findings about
the Wason card-sorting test.
Lecture 6. The issue of genetic determinism
Here I will address the questions: what is genetic determinism? Is it a straw man? I
will explain the differences between genetic determinism and genetic selectionism,
and raise the possibility that Evolutionary Psychologists are only committed to the
latter. Then I will present Developmental Systems Theory as a challenge to genetic
selectionism, and possible implications of this for Evolutionary Psychology
Lecture 7. Nature and Nurture
This lecture will be about attempts that have been made to define ‘innate’ and
‘acquired’, and about how the distinction may have to be abandoned. I will discuss
Evolutionary Psychology’s position on the issue – their denial that they are ‘nativists’
on the ground that they reject the distinction. I will then ask: why do they nonetheless
appear to be nativists? Are they sneaking nativism in by the back door? (This lecture
will draw on a paper of my own: “Nature, Nurture and Why the Pendulum Still
Swings”, Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 35 (2), 2005.)
Lecture 8. Possible implications of Evolutionary Psychology for human free
will
Here I will discuss the question of whether evolutionary theories of human nature, if
true, imply that we have less free will then we might have thought. I will again bring
up the issue of genetic determinism, but will also suggest that the massive
modularity thesis, independently of genetic determinism, may be the source of the
problem. (This lecture will draw on another paper of mine “Free Will, Compatibilism,
and the Human Nature Wars”, forthcoming in Thomas Reydon and Katie Plaisance
eds. Philosophy of Behavioural Biology, Boston Studies in Philosophy and Science,
Springer.)
Lecture 9. New directions in (small-e, small-p) evolutionary psychology I: Evodevo and the mind
Here I will introduce Buller’s distinction between ‘Evolutionary Psychology’ and
‘evolutionary psychology’ – the former being a research programme with a specific
set of commitments (the modularity thesis, genetic selectionism, etc.), the latter
being any research programme that uses evolution to understand human nature. I
will present evo-devo and show how it challenges both gene-centred and
adaptationist views of evolution, and offers a different way of thinking about
modularity. I will make some suggestions on how this might affect the issue of
human nature, both in supplying a critical stance towards Evolutionary Psychology,
and in suggesting a positive alternative approach. (This lecture will draw to some
extent on a paper by Paul Griffiths: “Evo-Devo Meets the Mind: Towards a
Developmental Evolutionary Psychology”, in Roger Sanson and Robert Brandon
eds. Integrating Evolution and Development, MIT Press, 2007.)
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Lecture 10. New directions in evolutionary psychology II: Extende/embedded
cognition
I will introduce Clark’s concept of Extended/embedded cognition – the idea that
much cognition goes on outside the head, and that consequently we can explain
much of our cognitive capacities without having to presuppose as much internal
processing as cognitive science has traditionally thought. I will discuss how this
provides an alternative to the Evolutionary Psychology view that the mind must
contain many information-rich inbuilt modules. Rowlands’ evolutionary arguments for
large-scale embedded cognition will be presented, and Ratcliffe’s will be discussed
as a case-study.
COURSE TEXT: Selected readings
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------PHILOSOPHY, GENETICS AND EVOLUTION
Professor Paul E. Griffiths (University of Sydney)
Lecture 1. Introduction
I will briefly outline how ‘philosophy of biology’ came to be a recognized subdiscipline in philosophy. I will outline with examples, three sort of work that fall under
the heading of philosophy of biology:
1. Work on general questions in philosophy of science using biology as a test
case
2. Work on conceptual issues in biological theory
3. Work on the implications of biology for traditional philosophical questions
I will briefly indicate the content of the following lectures
Lecture 2. Evolution and Purpose
The focus of this lecture will be on attempts to derive purpose in nature from
evolutionary theory. This will require a brief outline of how evolutionary explanations
work, and of some of the philosophical issues raised by the ‘adaptationism debate’ in
evolutionary biology.
I will outline the three main forms of adaptationism that have been defended by
biologists and philosophers:
 Empirical Adaptationism: Natural selection is a powerful and ubiquitous force,
and there are few constraints on the biological variation that fuels it. To a
large degree, it is possible to predict and explain the outcome of evolutionary
processes by attending only to the role played by selection
 Methodological Adaptationism: The best way for scientists to approach
biological systems is to look for features of adaptation and good design.
Adaptation is a good “organizing concept” for evolutionary research.
 Explanatory Adaptationism: The apparent design of organisms, and the
relations of adaptedness between organisms and their environments, are the
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key questions in biology. Explaining these phenomena is the core intellectual
mission of evolutionary theory.
The take-home message of this lecture will be that the key conceptual role of the
idea of adaptation in modern biology (explanatory adaptationism) is independent of
the empirical issues about the relative role of adaptation and other causes in shaping
the diversity of life empirical adaptationism).
Lecture 3. Evolutionary Biology and the Proximal Biosciences
The focus of this lecture will be on the relationship between evolutionary biology and
the experimental, laboratory-based work that makes up most of the practice of
modern biology, particularly genetics and molecular biology.
I will outline Ernst Mayr’s concepts of ‘ultimate’ and ‘proximal’ biology and criticize
those concepts in light of Niko Tinbergen’s ‘four questions’ model of biological
explanation.
I will outline some recent attempts by philosophers of biology to argue that the
proximal biosciences are epistemically independent of evolutionary biology and
criticize their arguments.
The take-home message of this lecture will be that evolutionary biology defines what
counts as a living system, and which of the activities of such systems constitute
being alive, and thus that evolutionary biology frames the questions of the other
biosciences.
Lecture 4. The Gene
The focus of this lecture will be on classical, transmission genetics, including the
application of the principles of classical genetic analysis to hereditary disease,
agricultural genetics, and population genetics.
The key philosophical question to be explored is the nature of theoretical entities. We
will contrast the treatment of the gene as an intervening variable – a calculating
device - with its treatment as a physical unit.
The take-home message of the lecture, following the main thrust of recent
scholarship is that Mendelian genetics was primarily an experimental practice
(‘genetic analysis’) which allowed the exploration of other biological questions. As
such, the Mendelian conception of the gene is still alive and well in fields in which
similar experimental practices are still used.
Lecture 5. Genes as physical objects
The focus of this lecture will be molecular genetics.
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The most important philosophical question to be explored in this lecture is that of
whether Mendelian genetics reduces to molecular biology. I will argue that, although
molecular biology shows that there is nothing more to genetics than the molecular
processes it reveals, the idea of an, Mendelian old theory being reduced to a new,
molecular theory does not fit the case of genetics. I will argue that the sense on
which molecular biological research is an example of successful reductionistic
research is best captured by the neo-Mechanist accounts of reduction as the
elucidation of underlying mechanisms associated with authors such as William
Bechtel.
The take-home message of this lecture is that the discoveries of genetics can’t be
fitted into the simple model of growing knowledge about an object called ‘the gene’.
Instead, various uses of the term ‘gene’ relate to different ways of thinking about
what the genetic system does in evolution, heredity and development. Each of these
ways of thinking is grounded in real facts about what the underlying molecules are
doing, but it is not possible to reduce them all to one, uniform way of chopping DNA
sequences up into ‘genes’.
Lecture 6. Genes and behaviour
This lecture will focus on behavioral genetics (including psychiatric genetics). I will
explain briefly how quantitative genetics more broadly emerged from the work of
Fisher and found applications in agricultural research and evolutionary genetics.
The primary philosophical issue here is the relationship between correlational
explanations, based on population-level statistical data, and mechanical
explanations, based on causal analysis. We will look at the different concept of geneenvironment interaction that these techniques necessitate, and at how scientists
frame their research so as to sidestep practical obstacles arising from their
techniques.
The take-home message of this lecture is that traditional concerns about behavior
genetics are being overcome through the adoption of more experimental, as
opposed to observational, techniques and through the ‘molecularisation of nurture’,
which is allowing gene-environment interaction to become a focus of research rather
than a methodological obstacle.
Lecture 7. The reactive genome
This lecture focuses on postgenomics and systems biology. I will outline the task of
genome annotation posed by the success of major sequencing projects, and look at
the ENCODE project as an example of ‘postgenomics’.
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The lecture will outline the demise of the idea that coding genes are the main
functional elements of the genome, and that they contain a self-executing program,
and then explore some potential replacements for that idea: 1. Postgenomic
accounts of gene regulation - regulated recruitment and combinatorial specificity of
transcription complexes and the postulated role of small RNAs. 2. The idea of
‘systems biology’ – I will look at the various sense in which this phrase is used and
their relation – or lack thereof – to the old tradition of systems theory.
The philosophical topics to be explored in this lecture are twofold. First, I will use the
material to develop further the account of reduction and reductionism given in the
last lecture. I will argue that postgenomic biology reinforces the idea that the
organization of parts, as much as the parts themselves, is the key to explanations of
how living systems function and that this supports a weak, Bechtel-style anti
reductionism. I will criticize recent defenses of reductionism, such as that of
Alexander Rosenberg, from this perspective.
Second, I will reflect on the trend to data-driven, descriptive science in the research
described and use this to exemplify some of the themes in the recent neo-Mechanist
literature. Contemporary molecular bioscience does not consist of general laws and
theories that unify diverse phenomena, but rather a cast of parts and mechanisms
who only overarching pattern is phylogenetic. I will assess the frequently made
assertion that systems biology in particular is a descriptive, rather than an
explanatory enterprise, using a mechanist account of explanation.
The take-home message of this lecture is that the genome is not an inner controller,
but a reactive structure embedded in a wider environment, and that it is this system
that biology is now trying to understand. The sciences that are creating this new
understanding are molecular in nature, but the leap from this to traditional part-whole
reductionism can only be made by assimilating molecular bioscience to traditional
philosophical models of scientific theories which do not fit.
Lecture 8. Outside the Gene
This lecture will examine epigenetic inheritance, parental effects, and phenotypic
plasticity. It will introduce the idea of ‘ecological developmental biology’ and
reinterpret that research program via the idea of ‘developmental niche construction’.
The lecture will suggest that biological advances are subverting the nature/nurture
dichotomy by relocating nurture at the molecular-level.
A historical section will discuss the ancient distinction between epigenesist and
preformation. Epigenesis was and is the focus on a contingent developmental
process rather than a preformed or predetermined product. In the 1940s Conrad
Waddington integrated this concept into his view of genetics - epigenetics - to stress
the dynamic and interactive nature of development. The relatively new, molecular
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definition of the term - as changes in gene expression that do not involve changes in
the genetic material – can be interpreted as just a handful of mechanisms within the
wide range epigenetic processes that define development. This will be followed by
an outline of the ideas of the evolutionary thinkers of the 1940s who thought in terms
of phenotypic plasticity and the adaptive norm.
The philosophical themes of this lecture will not be from the general philosophy of
science, but will relate to specific debates in recent philosophy of biology. In
particular, the lecture will look at current incarnations of the nature/nurture
controversy, and show how the kind of scientific material described in the lecture can
be used to support several radical theoretical agendas – the ‘multiple inheritance
systems’ view, ‘developmental systems theory’, and alternative evolutionary
processes such as genetic assimilation/accommodation. I will argue that at the very
least the material reviewed tells strongly against the idea that the gene is the unit of
evolution and in favour of the view that evolution is at bottom a phenotypic-level
process.
The take-home message of this lecture is that recent developments lend
considerable support to a form of ‘molecular epigenesis’.
Lecture 9. The gene in evolution
This lecture focuses on comparative genomics and molecular systematics. I will give
a basic sense of the logic behind both parsimony and maximum likelihood methods
in phylogenetic systematics.
I will also introduce some of the key ideas in the philosophy of systematics, showing
that molecular systematic is conducted on the basis of a taxonomic philosophy that
is phylogenetic, rather than phenetic or ‘evolutionary’ in Mayr’s sense.
The take home message of this lecture is: Nothing in the genome makes sense
except in the light of evolution.
Lecture 10. On the parts of animals.
The title of this lecture is the title of one of the works of Aristotle, usually regarded as
the first philosopher to think about biology. His question remains a good one today –
what is the correct way to divide an animal into its proper parts? In molecular biology
this question arises for the genome – what are the proper parts of a biomolecule?
I will outline in more detail the idea of ‘homology’, introduced in the previous lecture,
and its companion concept of ‘analogy’. I will explain the development of these ideas
in recent molecular biology and show how they have been modified and
supplemented with additional concepts.
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The main philosophical issue in this lecture will be the relationship between the
concept of homology and evolutionary biology. I will outline some opposing views on
this issue put forward by contemporary biologists and philosophers, and examine
their arguments.
The take-home message of this lecture is that, while nothing in biology makes sense
except in the light of evolution, this is an empirical discovery, not an a priori truth. If
evolutionary theory turned out to be false, much of the detailed theory developed by
biologists would remain valid and could be construed in light of some alternative
explanatory framework.
COURSE TEXT: Kim Sterelny & Paul E. Griffiths, Sex and Death: An
Introduction to Philosophy of Biology (University of Chicago Press, 1999).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ARISTOTLE’S BIOLOGY
Professor Armand M. Leroi (Imperial College London)
Title: Aristotle: Dead or Alive?
Aristotle was the first biologist. He didn’t call himself one – but he was the first
thinker to consider the entire world of living things as a subject of study. His scope
was immense: he wrote 11 books that collectively form a “Great Course” in biology –
but many scholars have argued that biological thinking pervades his entire
philosophical system. In this course I will outline what he tried to do, how he did it,
and how modern science is still imbued with the consequences of his great project.
Lecture 1. Plato v. Aristotle, or, what is science?
Pick up any of Aristotle’s biological works – Historia Animalium, say – and you find
yourself reading a work that is recognisably science. A rather funny kind of science
to be sure, yet one whose goals do not seem very different from those of any
modern biologist. Why is that? And what do we mean by “science”? We’ll compare
Aristotle’s project with that of his teacher, Plato who, late in life, wrote the Timaeus, a
cosmology that also looks like a scientific work. But is it? And if not, why not? If we
can answer these questions, perhaps we can find out what science meant to
Aristotle.
Lecture 2. Aristotle by the shore: the theory and practise of science.
In the Posterior Analytics, Aristotle sketched, at great and complex length, a
scientific method. Many scholars have searched for this method in his biological
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works – but they haven’t had much luck. Why is that? How did Aristotle actually go
about doing science? To find out we consider where he got his data from, how he
decided whether or not to believe it, how he arranged it, and why he did so.
Lecture 3. Nature’s Joints.
In the 19th century many scholars thought that Aristotle was a taxonomist. In the
1960’s and 70’s some scholars even argued that Aristotle’s “essentialist” taxonomy
had stifled the theory of evolution for 2000 years! Is this so? Was Aristotle a protoLinnaeus; was he an “essentialist;” was Linneaus? What are the goals of
classification? And how do you – to use Plato’s phrase – “carve nature at the
joints?”
Lecture 5. Ways of Explaining.
Aristotle thought that the goal of science was to explain phenomena. And he
developed his famous “four causes” to do just that. Here we investigate what they
are, how he used them, and discuss their influence on biology’s subsequent history.
Lecture 6. What’s the matter? Materialism & its Discontents.
Aristotle’s great opponents were the Pre-Socratic philosophers such as Democritus
and Empedocles. They were “materialists:” they thought that the world, in all its
compexity, could be explained in terms of the properties of matter. Aristotle doesn’t
like this. He really dislikes Democritus’ atomism. Why? What consequences does
his stance have for his account of the world? Can Aristotle be a reductionist if he’s
not a materialist? Can we?
Lecture 7. Engineering without Evolution.
Dobzhansky famously said that “nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of
evolution.” Well, Aristotle was no evolutionist – and yet quite a lot of what he says
about biology makes sense. How can that be? In this lecture I will argue that when
Aristotle tries to explain the natural world, he is thinking like an engineer. Modern
biologists do too and so their explanations don’t seem that different. But who – or
what – is the engineer?
Lecture 8. The Cybernetic Soul.
At the heart of Aristotle’s physiology lies, well, the heart. He thinks that the heart is
the “seat of the soul” – by which he means the thing that keeps living things alive.
The soul also mediates their goals - it’s a very teleological device. But isn’t this talk
of souls hopelessly mystical? Many scholars have thought so: they charge Aristotle
with that most heinous of biological thought-crimes: “vitalism”. I think that’s wrong –
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and I’ll try to explain how Aristotle’s soul not only makes a great deal of sense, but
solves a number of his problems – and ours as well.
Lecture 9. The Paradoxes of Eternity.
Aristotle was no evolutionist. But he wasn’t a creationist either. He was something
else – an “eternalist”. He thought that the world that we see has always been there
and always will be. This, by modern standards, is a strange idea: creationism and
evolutionism at least agree that the world had a start! Why did he believe it?
Finding out will bring us to Aristotle’s relationship with the divine. For God does have
a place in Aristotle’s cosmology and even in his biology – but why?
Lecture 10. Aristotle v. Darwin, or, what is science?
Aristotle and Darwin are the two greatest biologist of all time. They have a great
deal in common: both accumulated enormous amounts of data in order to prosecute
particular theoretical agendas. We’ll study them to find out how they did this. But we
won’t discuss their triumphs. Instead we’ll consider their failures: Darwin’s theory of
inheritance (Pangenesis) and Aristotle’s theory of spontaneous generation. Both of
these theories, in their day, were met with sensible criticisms. So why did these
great scientists believe them? Were their failures of the same kind? If we can answer
these questions, we may find out what “science” meant to them – and what it means
to us.
Course Text: The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation (ed.
by J. Barnes, Princeton)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------COMMUNICATING BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
IN GLOBALLY DIVERSE CULTURES
Dr. Fern Elsdon-Baker (British Council)
The course will explore issues of communicating the nature and development of
biological sciences, using perspectives drawn from history, philosophy and societal
study.
COURSE TEXT: Selected readings
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
APPLICATION FORM
Each member will receive the course texts for the lecture courses. In addition to the
courses, there will be smaller Reading Groups and an informal Common Room.
Members must attend all required instruction and submit an examination essay at
the end of the session.
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The fee for members from outside Mainland China is US$ 240.00 or RMB Y1500.00.
The fee for those accepted as auditors from outside Mainland China is US$120.00 or
RMB Y750.00.
Members and auditors must arrange their own transport to Chongqing and pay for
accommodation and meals at Southwest University, Chongqing.
Please send your completed application form to arrive by post or email to
Dr. Ma Xinjing
Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
5 Jianguomennei Dajie
BEIJING 100732 CHINA
E-mail: maxinjing99@163.com
The deadline for application is 20 May 2011.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------APPLICATION FORM
PHILOSOPHY SUMMER SCHOOL IN CHINA
2011 SESSION: PHILOSOPHY OF BIOLOGY
SOUTHWEST UNIVERSITY, CHONGQING
25 July-14 August 2011
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